This chapter presents two different ways to extend the Google Apps platform. First, there is the Google Marketplace, a web store where customers can search for cloud services and purchase them. There are online applications, standalone client applications, and even services related to the Google Apps. Second, there is a Google Apps Engine for business, a platform for designing and hosting web applications that will benefit from the highly scalable architecture provided by Google's datacenters.
Google Apps Marketplace is a website that offers to Google Apps customers a large array of services, either free or paid, which extend the Google Apps suite. Some products are also complements to the Enterprise Search service.
The homepage for the Google Apps Marketplace
We shall focus here on Google Apps products. They are split into three categories in the Google Apps Marketplace: desktop applications, online applications, and services. Sorting according to various business criteria is available.
Here are a few examples. Chapter 11, Third-party Extensions will go into more details on some examples that we quote here:
- Document management: OffiSync is a plugin for the Microsoft Office suite, which uses the online storage facility of Google Docs and its collaborative tools.
- Workflow tools: RunMyProcess. This allows users to design and deploy business processes based on Google Apps.
- Administration tools: Spanning Sync helps synchronize a Mac or an iPhone with the Google Apps for everything related to calendars and contacts.
- Project Management. Smartsheet is a project management tool using Gantt diagrams. This tools benefits from tight integration with Google Apps for notification mechanisms and collaboration. Excel documents or MS Project files can be converted into an online project.
- Productivity tools: Shared contacts allows you to share contacts with users from other Google domains.
Searches can be performed by category:
Results of a search by criteria in Google Apps Marketplace
Each product is reviewed by customers and a series of icons show the level of integration of the application with Google Apps:
These icons show, respectively, integration with Calendar, Google's universal navigation bar, SSO, Google Docs, and Google contacts
The Google universal navigation is a navigation bar that allows you to go from one Google app to another.
The Google universal navigation bar can integrate external applications
The only prerequisite to downloading an application from the Google Apps Marketplace is to have a Google Apps administrator account. The applications that need access to a Google Apps domain data must be granted these rights explicitly and for each API by the administrator when deploying the application. Once it has been installed, the application can be enabled immediately or the activation can be deferred. An application cannot however be uninstalled, only disabled.
Usually an application will be available to users immediately after it has been activated. In some cases, their inclusion in the universal navigation bar can take more time, up to 24 hours.
One important point to be aware of is that the data retention and protection policy for each application does not depend on Google and is entirely under the control of the vendor of the product. The best way to determine what happens to your data is to contact the vendor or to see what other customers say in their ratings of the product, or both.
During the installation process, the administrator will be asked to accept or decline the contract terms. An explicit list of enterprise data to which the application needs access will be given at that time.
Google does not systematically review applications available on its Marketplace, as Apple does, for instance, on its App Store. Actually, anybody who is ready to pay 100$ for the inscription fee and who declares that they adhere to Google's conditions can propose a service on the Marketplace. However, each page presenting a product contains a form that allows customers to review an application and a form to report any possible abuse to Google.